In an oil or gas well setting an exposed, or open, generally upward facing tubular member, such as a flange or pipe, is a common occurrence. Often such a tubular member provides direct access to the oil or gas well itself, or to some of the wellhead equipment. Such an opening, even if uncovered for a relatively short period of time, creates the potential for foreign objects to accidentally enter the well or wellhead equipment, causing safety concerns and potential down time of the well. As such, there is often a need to have a cover for such a generally upwardly faced tubular member.
To complicate matters, a variety of differently sized flanges or other tubular members, such as casing bowls, tubing hangers, well heads, spools, valves, blowout preventers (BOPs) and other wellhead and Christmas tree equipment, may be employed between different well sites or during different stages of well drilling, well operation or well servicing. For example, common types of tubular member inside diameters include 13⅝ inch, 11 inch and 7 1/16 inch bore American Petroleum Institute (API) 6A flanges.
To complicate matters even further, the exposed ends of tubular members may be flanged or non-flanged, studded (such as with stud bolts or tap end stud bolts) or non-studded with bolt openings to accept such studded members. Different bolt pattern configurations, such as 12 bolt or 16 bolt patterns, are also commonly used, in oil field applications.
The variable dimensions of tubular members, the presence or absences of stud members and the different bolt pattern configurations, make it difficult to design a single cover that will be suitable for most or all of the tubular members commonly encountered in an oil or gas well application. Accordingly, a need exists in the art for a cover that fits a variety of such different tubular members.